Transport: less money but still costly projects

As the British newspapers were reported on the 6 billion spending cut to lower the national deficit (of, er, £900 billion total debt), the Daily Telegraph put a few lines on the estimated cuts for the department of Transport.

Network Rail will have to save £100m (for a 5 year budget of £28.5bn for the period 2009-14 ~£6bn/y). In parallel, TfL budget will be cut by £108m, which may affect also London’s councils as they receive money for schemes such as the Exemplar scheme in Clapham Junction for roads refurbishment (the scheme is estimated to cost £3m, including £800k coming from TfL money and allocated by the Council to the Junction).

However, in the meantime, it has been confirmed (according to the Queen’s Speech delivered to Parliament) that Labour’s plans for a high-speed rail network are among the commitments of the new government. The Conservatives have also previously supported high-speed rail plans which would see a line from London to Heathrow airport and to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds and, eventually, to Scotland.

Um, national debt and budget deficit are two different concepts, and it’s worth taking the time to understand the concepts. If the deficit were £900bn we’d really have problems justifying ideological reshaping of the entire country. We don’t, so these transport cuts (plus the appointment of an ideological tax-cutter with no interest in transport as Secretary of State) indicate that the deficit will be used as the excuse to cancel useful stuff.

“What all of that means for investment in CJ station…remains unknown”

No, it means you can kiss goodbye to it, as predicted. Transport is sub-zero priority now.